NLD Non-verbal Learning Disabilities. NLD has problems with information processing. Auditory information (hearing) is processed better than visual (seeing) or tactile information (feeling). There are problems with visual perception and the performance of (mainly motor) tasks. There are also often emotional and social problems due to a limited ‘social understanding’. It is a relatively unknown learning disorder, although 5% of children have NLD.
[/H][H]Learning disability NLD
NLD is an abbreviation of the English term Non-verbal Learning Disabilities and means: Nonverbal Learning Disabilities. These are learning disabilities that relate to the processing of nonverbal information. This term can be confusing as it seems to imply that there are no verbal problems. However, NLD children may appear verbally skilled, but still have problems with certain aspects of language (particularly the meaning and understanding of linguistic information). At first glance, the child appears to be skilled due to its verbal ability and usually good memory for facts and verbal information. As a result, a NLD child is often asked too much. This can lead to irritability, anxiety and stubbornness.
Nonverbal disorder
NLD is a disorder in the processing of non-verbal information. NLD is a neuropsychological concept. Children with NLD can process auditory information (hearing) better than visual (seeing) or tactile information (feeling). Or put differently: children with NLD can listen and tell stories well, but have difficulty visually perceiving things and performing or doing things (mainly motor activities). This often also causes social problems. NLD problems manifest themselves in motor skills, spatial insight, insight into cause and effect relationships, school skills in arithmetic and writing, work pace and social understanding.
At school, NLD often presents with specific learning problems, namely an inexplicable difference between good performance in technical reading and spelling and increasingly poor performance in arithmetic and reading comprehension. NLD is often accompanied by slower social-emotional development. This learning disorder is common: five percent of children in primary education appear to have NLD.
The concept of NLD syndrome
The term NLD was first used by Johnson and Mykleburst in 1971. Canadian neuropsychologist Rourke further developed the concept in the 1970s and 1980s and brought the concept of NLD to the attention of professionals who work with children with learning disabilities. According to Rourke, these were children with deficits in sensory and visual information processing, which causes them to have difficulty with complex movements and their orientation in space is poor. These are the primary deficits, which include problems with fluent assessment and responding to complex social situations.
Development course at NLD
The primary deficits of a child with NLD appear to be present at a very young age; however, these are often not fully noticed. During the further course of development, several features of this syndrome become increasingly clear. This is especially true around the age of eight or nine. This is the age at which a child is expected to be more flexible in social and communicative areas, including at school.
A NLD child gradually develops a deficit in social skills. The ability to adapt to changing circumstances and emotional stability are weak. Socially, children with NLD generally have few social skills and their empathy is often limited. In addition, children with NLD tend to take everything very literally, which makes it difficult for them to assess and often misunderstand social situations. They are often also anxious in unfamiliar social situations. Children with NLD have difficulty recognizing and interpreting nonverbal signals (gestures, facial expressions, body language, etc.). This makes social contact complicated. Children with NLD often also close off in social situations. They may also regularly be or become inexplicably angry or anxious. They often do not understand their own emotions and become overwhelmed by them, without having control over them. There is a good chance that a child with NLD will withdraw from social contacts with peers, develop anxiety and become depressed.
After the eighth to ninth year, there also appears to be an increasing imbalance in learning development, with (insightful) arithmetic and reading comprehension lagging behind technical reading and spelling. Due to their insufficient spatial orientation skills, NLD children mainly use language to discover the environment. The language form of the child with NLD is relatively good, but the content of the spoken language is loose sand. The message is missing and there is a lack of coherence. There may also be weak intonation.
Children with NLD have clear attention problems, but mainly in the spatial-visual area. NLD children do not see the whole picture of something, as their attention is only focused on individual visual details. Moreover, they do not immediately recognize visual stimuli. For example, a child with NLD may completely overlook the nonverbal signals given by others, giving their behavior an inappropriate or maladaptive character. For example, they can continue talking, while the other indicates that they are not interested at all in the conversation or the content of the conversation. (This maladaptive behavior resembles the impulsiveness characteristic of ADHD, and also PDD-NOS/Asperger’s syndrome: contact disorder related to autism).
Possible causes of NLD
The causes of NLD are not yet clear; nothing can be said with certainty yet. There are a number of assumptions that have been further investigated over time. The first assumption (hypothesis) came from Rourke. He hypothesized that problems with NLD can be explained by a (developmental) disorder of the white matter in the brain, the protective layer around the nerve fibers. The right hemisphere, which contains more white matter than the left hemisphere, is specialized for processing new information and learning new skills. The white matter in the brains of children with NLD is said to be damaged. The sooner it occurs, the more serious the shortages would become. These shortages would have consequences for information processing.
Neurological research in recent years has shown that many different brain areas play a role in tasks such as reading and arithmetic. The ‘white matter assumption’ was a first step towards explaining NLD, but seems too simple in the light of new findings. With NLD there are also problems in working memory, a function that cannot be localized in one of the two hemispheres of the brain. There is also talk of a disorder in executive function, which is localized in the frontal lobe. Furthermore, there are researchers who doubt the existence of NLD as a whole. Most studies point towards a disturbed balance between the right and left hemispheres of the brain. The communication between the two hemispheres of the brain appears to be disrupted at some points, causing information to pass through too slowly and making learning very difficult.
Diagnose
The diagnosis of NLD is generally based on a neuropsychological profile of weaknesses and strengths, which provides information about the child’s information processing. (The symptoms of NLD may overlap with other syndromes ADHD, PDD-NOS, Asperger’s syndrome, Tourette’s syndrome). When recognizing the NLD syndrome, it is important to first map out the developmental history of the child (anamnesis data: cognitive, motor and social-emotional development). And to combine this with results from psychological test research. An IQ test is often administered, which specifically examines the difference between the verbal IQ and the performance IQ (visual/spatial-analytical ability). In addition, the child’s school performance must be examined. Neuropsychological research is often also carried out to identify neurological problems (brain information processing). Sometimes child psychiatric research can also take place. The NLD scales have recently been published, a screening instrument consisting of questionnaires for an indication of NLD.
Symptoms that may occur with NLD
- Little urge to explore in the very young child (a lot of sitting and watching)
- Gradual development
- Slow development of motor skills and manual dexterity
- Clumsy, stiff gross motor skills
- Lots of ‘crazy’ accidents
- Problems with fine motor skills (pen grip, knife and fork handling, etc.)
- Little play and especially little play with sensory and construction materials
- Poor hand-eye coordination
- Speech development that starts relatively late (once it starts, speech is good; however, there may be pronunciation problems and peculiarities such as echoing, repetitions and monotonous speech)
- Talk a lot, but language/thinking development in toddlerhood is difficult to get going
- Problems with insightful calculations (technical calculations are taught)
- Slowness, uncertainty in work
- Difficulty learning routines (once the child has mastered them, he or she is good to extremely good at it)
- A lot of difficulty with new situations
- Passive behavior
- Limited social judgment (constantly throwing themselves into everything and then becoming disoriented)
- Few social skills
- Fear of unusual social situations
- Inexplicable expressions of anger and fear
- Difficulty recognizing nonverbal signals (gestures, facial expressions)
- Problems with overview, for example in the gym and swimming pool
- Get lost quickly
- Dangerous behavior in traffic
If NLD is suspected in a child, it is important to take steps as soon as possible in consultation with a professional expert (psychologist or educational psychologist). Early recognition and guidance of children with NLD is very important, as NLD can have a major influence on the development of social, emotional and various other problems. It is also very important for schools to gain more insight into this learning disability and its guidance.
More information about the NLD syndrome
- www.balansdigital.nl
- www.nldinfo.nl
- www.nldline.com
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- Non-verbal communication
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